درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study aimed to investigate the effect of oral and written contextualization of collocation teaching on the learning and long-term retention of semantically semitransparent collocations by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 65 students were selected from a cohort of students who were studying English at an English language institute in Sanandaj, Iran. They were randomly divided into two groups based on whether they would receive oral and written contextualization. Then, each group was further subdivided into two groups based on whether they would receive instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, yielding two experimental groups each including 16 learners as the Written Practice Group plus and minus instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, two experimental groups as the Oral Practice Group plus and minus instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, including 16 and 17 learners, respectively. Their initial general English proficiency was measured through the Preliminary English Test (PET), and they were pretested on semitransparent collocations through a researcher-made collocation test. Finally, two equivalent researcher-made collocation tests were used to measure the participants’ learning and retention on the immediate and delayed posttests. The results of two-way ANOVAs revealed that the oral group outperformed the written group on the immediate and delayed posttests and the plus transparency instruction groups in each modality (oral and written) group outperformed the minus transparency instruction groups. The interpretations of the findings and their pedagogical implications have been discussed.

Writing as one of the important skills needed for communication has always been the topic of research in English teaching contexts. To improve the writing of English students, teachers employ different methods. This study was designed to investigate the impact of the inquiry learning method on the grammatical accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ writing. To do so, 90 intermediate EFL learners from Abadan Medical University were selected through the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and participated in a quasi-experimental study, and then they were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (EG & CG). Their ages ranged between 20 to 30. A pretest was administered to compare the results of their performance at the beginning of the study. The inquiry learning method was taught to the EG as the treatment, while the conventional method was employed for the CG. In the experimental class, the teacher did not teach everything directly, and the learners were expected to discover the knowledge and generate rules, but the presentation of materials in the CG was conventional without any discussion, and the students in the CG were mainly passive. After the instruction, a posttest was given to both groups to observe the impact of the inquiry learning method on the grammatical accuracy of their writings. The analysis of the data was accomplished through the application of a dependent sample t -test and an independent-samples t- test to compare the mean scores, and the results indicated that the inquiry learning method improved the EGs̕ writing, and they outperformed the CG. The findings of this study could have implications for the EFL learners, teachers, and material designers that may help them in EFL language learning and teaching.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of web-based cooperative teaching through strategy-based instruction on EFL learners’ speaking and listening skills. Moreover, the use of cooperative teaching was hypothesized to have impact on the EFL learners’ self-efficacy. To this purpose, the study followed a mixed-methods design by implementing both qualitative and quantitative data gathering procedures through tests, questionnaire and interviews. The population of the study was made up of 48 EFL learners in a language institute in Kerman, a city in the south east of Iran. In order to collect data, four instruments were used: Cambridge Placement Test to homogenize the participants, pre- and post-listening and speaking tests, a questionnaire to estimate EFL learners’ self-efficacy and finally an interview. Based on the obtained results, it was revealed that the learners in the online group improved much more satisfactorily than those taught through traditional teaching procedures. It was, therefore, concluded that collaborative teaching strategies were effective in the web environment. Besides, meaningful relationships were observed between the use of the applied strategies and the oral skills. Furthermore, the results of the questionnaire clearly indicated the learners’ self-efficacy improvement from pre- to post-administration. Finally, the resulted obtained from the interview showed the positive effect of web-based cooperative and strategy teaching in the oral language class. In fact, majority of the learners in the online group clearly maintained that using collaboration in the web-environment could enhance their learning level. The findings of the study are of much help to language teachers who observe learning problems among their students. They can also assist learners who suffer from communicative difficulties in the situations where they have to collaborate with other groups and exchange ideas.

This study was an attempt to examine the effects of direct (DCF), indirect (ICF) and metalinguistic (MCF) written corrective feedback and the types of responses (i.e. + /– revision) on the perception of present/past perfect tenses by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. A pretest-posttest design was utilized to conduct the study with 210 intermediate EFL learners who were randomly selected based on their scores on Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). They were assigned to 7 groups, each including 30 participants: DCF+ Revision, DCF – Revision, ICF + Revision, and ICF – Revision, MCF + Revision, and MCF – Revision, and a control group. All students were asked to take a multiple-choice test (i.e. perception test) as a pretest and a posttest. After administering the pretest and imparting the relevant treatment, the posttest was administered. Results indicated that all experimental groups improved their knowledge of past/present perfect tenses from the pretest to the posttest, the ‘DCF + Revision’ group outperformed all other groups, all of the groups doing revision (i.e. DCF / ICF / MCF + Revision) outperformed their counterparts without revision (i.e. DCF / ICF/ MCF – Revision), and the only groups whose scores were not significantly different were the ‘ICF + Revision’, ‘DCF – Revision’, and ‘MCF – Revision’ groups. The findings provide insights into new ways of helping students to improve their L2 writing skills in general and specifically teaching grammatical structures through effective combinations of written corrective feedback and follow-up revision.

Problem-based Learning (PBL) as one of the newest teaching methods in the area of language teaching in second and foreign contexts, has been used by teachers in the last two decades in different institutes. In the current study, attempts were made to find out the effect of the two PBL subcategories, i.e. Hybrid Problem-based Learning (H-PBL) and Pure Problem-based Learning (PPBL) in comparison to a traditional lecture-based method, on Iranian EFL university learners’ speaking skill and their self-confidence, by implementing these two methods in the EFL classroom using eight teacher-made real-world problems. To this purpose, 56 undergraduate participants of Payam Noor university (PNU) in Abadan, Iran, were randomly selected, divided into a control group and two treatment HPBL and PPBL groups. The statistical analysis of the obtained results of the participants’ pretest-posttest scores, through one-way ANCOVA and Man-Whitney U test, revealed that the treatment groups outperformed the control group in speaking skill and self-confidence The findings of the study might bear implications for teachers and university curriculum designers to take more proper approaches towards the instructing university participants.

This study aimed to discover the possible relationship between intrapersonal intelligence and grammatical ability of Iranian EFL male and female learners. To this purpose, 139 undergraduate English students (46 males and 93 females), with the age range of 22-32, were selected through a TOEFL test as the participants. To obtain the needed data, the instruments used were a 119-item Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire (MIDAS) to assess the participants’ intrapersonal intelligence, and a 30-item grammar TOEFL test to the measure their grammar ability. The obtained data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and linear regression. The difference between male and female students in grammar ability and intrapersonal intelligence was determined by independent samples t-test. The results indicated a statistically significance relationship between intrapersonal intelligence and English grammar ability scores. The results also revealed no significant difference between male and female students in terms of intrapersonal intelligence and English grammar ability. The findings of this study may assist language teachers, policy makers and curriculum designers to consider the role of intrapersonal intelligence as a helpful construct in learning English grammar.

Free riding behavior or not contributing equally in group work, is a common obstacle in many cooperative activities in language learning. The present study aimed at comparing male and female EFL learners' attitude and their free riding tendency to use the benefits of lowering free riding behaviors in order to make group work more influential in language learning. To this purpose, 140 intermediate and upper intermediate Iranian EFL learners and 30 teachers participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used to investigate the topic. The obtained results revealed that the female learners act better in reducing free riding behaviors. The results further revealed a positive perception of interpersonal activities at both level of language proficiency-- intermediate and upper-intermediate. Actually, the obtained results showed that the intermediate group (males and females) acted more positively than the other group in this respect. The findings of the study bear some implications and suggestions for scholar interested in the topic of this.

Student evaluation apprehension as one of the detrimental factors in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context, reduces and gradually diminishes student participation in classroom activities, since learners are mostly concerned with how others (teacher and classmates) evaluate/judge their performance. Due to the fact that the studies considering the important role of student evaluation apprehension are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate the newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and find the relationship between student evaluation apprehension and academic achievement, gender, and educational level of 258 EFL students. The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring EFL students’ evaluation apprehension. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between student evaluation apprehension and academic achievement. Besides, it was found that females experience evaluation apprehension more than males, and BA students were also found to have more evaluation apprehension than their MA counterparts.

This study sought to investigate translation strategies in translation of culture-specific items (CSIs) in Persian translation of ‘The Egyptian’ novel by Mika Waltari. To this end, it benefited from corpus-based comparative content analysis design within a qualitative approach. The corpus of this study consisted of 150 pages of the novel ‘The Egyptian’ by Mika Waltari along with their Persian translations by Zabihollah Mansouri, which were selected through simple random sampling. Data analysis included parallel comparison of the source text and its translation in terms of the occurrence of different types of translation strategies used in the translations. Furthermore, statistical procedures which were conducted consisted of calculation of frequency and percentage of different translation strategies (to identify the most and least frequent strategies) and chi-square test (to see if there is a significant difference between the frequencies of different strategies used by the translator). The results of data analysis showed that the translator has used the following translation strategies: Calque, equivalence, adaptation, literal translation, modulation and omission. Moreover, it was found that the most frequent strategy was calque. Furthermore, the lowest frequency belonged to modulation and omission. In addition, a significant difference was revealed between the frequencies of different translation strategies. The findings have some implications for translation students, translation teachers, and translators.

The present study is part of a Ph.D. program that explores the possible effect of critical thinking-oriented dynamic assessment (CT-DA) on learners' learning potential in reading comprehension skills. 21 Iranian language learners who were homogenized in terms of their language proficiency, reading comprehension, and critical thinking abilities participated in this study. Learners were divided into three groups of CT-DA, dynamic assessment (DA), and Control group. While learners in CT-DA received mediation loaded with critical thinking techniques, learners in DA group received dynamic assessment mediation, and learners in the Control group did not receive any mediation. The analysis of the results revealed that DA and CT-DA significantly improve learners' reading potential scores. Moreover, significant differences between the Learning Potential Score (LPS) of DA and CT-DA groups were found, denoting the better performance of participants who received a critical thinking-oriented dynamic assessment. Finally, the qualitative analyses led to the detection of eleven mediational strategies which nurtured the development of the reading comprehension ability of L2 learners during CT-DA. The article concludes with suggestions for further research on dynamic assessment and critical thinking in second/foreign language development.

High-stakes tests exert impacts on teachers’ perceptions, methodology, practices, and materials used in the classroom. However, previous research studies have overlooked the role of teachers’ past experiences in the tests and their instructional planning prior to, during, and after the preparation courses. This study inspected the washback effect of IELTS examination on Iranian EFL teachers’ instructional planning considering their IELTS related experiences. Through a mixed-methods research design, two sets of questionnaires were distributed among 120 Iranian IELTS instructors to examine the IELTS washback effect on their perceptions of instructional planning. Afterward, a semi-structured interview was held with 15 instructors, selected from among 120 initial participants, to supplement the previously collected data. The results of one sample t-test and Wilcoxon signed-ranks test indicated that the current level of Instructional planning at item and total score level was beyond average. Likewise, the results of Spearman rho indicated a positive and significant relationship between instructors’ instructional planning and their past IELTS related experiences. It was also found that the IELTS examination made the instructors develop exam-oriented plans by focusing on the students’ test performance. The results are invaluable for IELTS instructors in that they can raise their knowledge and awareness about the nature and scope of IELTS washback effect and ways to develop exam-oriented plans.